Who's Afraid of Big Bad Boone?
by BonsaiBabe
Summary: Arcade finds out Boone's deepest secret-he's ticklish as all get out. De-anoning from FKM. T for language


"Christ. Quit bitching and get a spare out of my duffle," Boone finally interjected, dead tired of hearing Gannon go on about his damned shirt. Boone's mama always did say that smart folk had no common sense, and he was inclined to believe her. Gannon had hiked two days out of New Vegas, conveniently forgetting to pack clean shirts, and two days of road dust and blood splatter didn't wear well on the prissy doctor.

"Is someone going to help me haul firewood or do I have to spend three times as long on a job that should take a half hour?" yelled the Courier from across their makeshift encampment. All three of them were on edge today, a combination of trudging through the Mojave under a particularly unforgiving sun and a hard day of big ironing against the Powder Gangers. These days it was nothing to kill a man in the Mojave, but it still took a tax on your soul. If you were still human inside, that is.

Boone strode after the Courier, not keen on arguing with the doctor on who should go, and Arcade was left alone in the camp. Once the Courier and Boone were almost out of sight, Arcade looked around nervously. He didn't particularly like being left alone in strange parts of the Mojave, especially when there were bloodthirsty escaped prisoners waltzing about and he was hard pressed to hit the broad side of a bighorner bull nine times out of ten, but sometimes you had to put on your big girl panties and deal with it. After all, nothing was forcing him to follow the Courier other than his own intrigue about the enigmatic woman and the vague instinct that if he trailed along long enough, he'd be there when history was made._ And that's something I can tell the grandchildren I'll be biologically incapable of having, _Arcade remarked to himself.

Well, even if he was relatively useless with a gun, Arcade could contribute as best he could. Whether that was by bandaging up a knife wound or adding to the atmosphere with his jaunty wit, well, that's all dependent on the situation, wasn't it? For now, the least Arcade could do is scavenge the immediate area for herbs and fruits and maybe set up the tents. With the fantastic mood those two were in, anything would help. But first, that clean shirt was calling his name….

Arcade attempted to stem the incoming tide of jokes and allusions his mind wished to make about him inside Boone—er, Boone's clothes and he was mostly successful. He approached the faded, desert camo bag like it may leap up and bite him, and with some apprehension, undid the zipper. Unsurprisingly, there were no booby traps lurking within, but then again, you could never tell with Boone. Arcade still wasn't quite convinced the man didn't have it in for him, even just a little.

Arcade took the topmost shirt out of the bag and held it up. It was a black wife beater with what looked like tiny holes from buckshot littering the left side. No thank you. He folded it up and placed it back in the bag. The second shirt he held up was a deep maroon V-neck, but when he held it up to his torso, it may have been a belly shirt if he put it on. Arcade wondered if it belonged to the Courier, or if Boone was just that short. He made a mental note to investigate later. The last shirt, at the bottom of the back, was a nondescript black tee. Arcade picked it up, and when it unfolded, a small book fell to the ground, naturally opening to a page filled with small, feminine scrawl. Arcade sat down on the ground to get a better look at the thing, unwilling to touch the small book just yet. While he loomed over it on his hands and knees, he couldn't help but read the first few lines.

_April 5, 2280_

_It's our anniversary today, and Craig and I had the loveliest dinner—for once I didn't burn anything, haha. I wore my new dress and did my hair up in braids; I think Craig liked it because he couldn't take his eyes off of me for the whole evening. _

Arcade forced himself to stop reading, feeling more than a little guilty for this invasion of privacy. I mean, if Boone came back to discover Arcade reading his dead wife's diary—good lord. The mind boggles at the violence that would ensue. But then again… the devious part of Arcade's mind whispered that _one _entry couldn't hurt, and he'd never get another glimpse into Boone's past like this. Pushing his glasses up his nose indecisively, Arcade reasoned that Carla would _want _him to read her diary, if only for the sake of getting to know Boone better so that they could be friends. Cara would want Boone to make friends, wouldn't she?

_Of course she would, _Boone affirmed. He was pretty good at convincing himself when he put his mind to it. He skimmed on, reading all about their dinner. Things got _quite _interesting during desert, when Carla apparently took a pan of melted chocolate off of the stove and—and at least Arcade had the good decency to blush as he read about Carla and Boone's sex life. But he didn't blush too much; he'd done his share of voyeuring in his day and he'd seen much kinkier than this. The entry was interesting, but what really caught his eye was the final paragraph.

_All in all, I think he enjoyed his anniversary present. But I got a little surprise of my own, as well. Afterwards, Craig and I lay in bed being lovey-dovey. We were both being quite silly; he was insisting that he was going to wear his glasses and beret to dinner with my mother next week, and I told him if he did that I'd have to tie him up and tickle him to death. I tickled him on the ribs as a warning and Craig gave the most unmanly squawk I've ever heard and leapt a foot of the mattress. Could it be that my dear Craig Boone is deathly ticklish? I'm thinking that this requires further investigation. _

Arcade snapped the book shut before he was tempted to flip to the next entry, and nestled it back in the bottom of the duffle bag. He zipped the bag shut and changed his shirt with a distracted air, mulling this new information over. Craig Boone, ticklish? The imagination fails at all the ways this could be delightful exploited.

XxXxX

Boone and the Courier trudged back some time later, and neither of their moods had been improved by the hike. Arcade was sitting on the ground, sorting through some herbs and humming to himself. "Oh, hello," he called cheerfully, as the two came within conversation range. He got nothing more than a grunt in return from the Courier, and nothing from Boone, who barely missed Arcade's hand when he unceremoniously dropped an armful of wood on the ground. If Arcade didn't know any better, he would have thought Boone did that on purpose. Ok, so he _did _know Boone and _did _think the man had done it on purpose. Well, Arcade still couldn't help feeling cheerful. After all, he was not only in possession of a clean shirt, but also of a very tidy little secret.

Arcade set himself to making a fire as his companions guzzled some water and took a brief rest. Only after the delicious smell of roasting squirrel bits permeated the air did the Courier drag her bedroll over to the fire and sit down heavily. Boone joined them soon after and the three sat in silence.

Arcade never was good at silence. "So," he said, conversationally, "What's on the agenda for tomorrow? More death row executions? Really, at this rate, the NCR should be paying us a gallows fee."

"It'll probably take us another day or two to clear out the prison," the Courier allowed.

"After this can we jockey for an easy assignment? I'm thinking something relaxing. Maybe at Camp Golf?" Arcade joked. He didn't get the response he was hoping for. The Courier said nothing and Boone took it upon himself to glare at Arcade with the white hot force of a thousand Archimedes. _Tough crowd…_ Arcade thought, feeling a little put out.

_This is bordering on a hostile work environment, _Arcade commented to himself, as Boone yanked the tin plate he was offering right out of his hands. Placing his wit aside for the moment, Arcade remained silent through dinner, figuring it to be a safer bet. The Courier remarked on their dwindling ammo supply for the shotgun and Boone snipped back, "shotguns don't have a great range. Maybe if you didn't shoot at things two hundred yards away, we'd have a little more ammo to work with." The Courier put her plate down with a clank and favored Boone with that annoyed little look that only females can conjure up. You know; the one that seems to suggest that castration would be too kind a punishment for your insolence. "Got somethin' to say," Boone shot back.

"Hey, hey, hey," Arcade interjected nervously. "We're all a little on edge right now. The blasted sun's been glaring down all day and we've been running around playing cowboys and Indians. We're all tired but let's all make an effort to not say things we'll regret in the morning. Sighing, the Courier agreed. Boone, however, remained silent.

_Not willing to play nice, eh?_ Arcade thought, not even attempting to squash the devious plan forming in his mind. The best part? He was just tired enough to be stupid, and just dehydrated enough to not think this through. It was starting to sound like a hell of a plan.

"Boone, cheer up before I come over there and make you cheer up," Arcade sing-songed.

"Oh, yeah, and how you gonna do that?" Boone spat back with a glare.

Tipping a wink to the Courier, Arcade said, "You heard it, he challenged me," before closing the distance between Boone and himself. Not allowing Boone even a second to process the situation, Arcade dived at his companion and applied himself to the strategic application of rib tickling. _I'm a doctor, I know all of your weak spots, _Arcade had time to think before his fingers spidered over Boone's ribs. There was an exceedingly shocked gasp from Boone and the Courier in tandem, and Arcade had just a moment to feel a jolt of terror run through his gut at the possible repercussions awaiting his failure, before the air was filled by deep, sandpapery chuckles. Arcade lifted his head sharply, to make sure he wasn't experiencing a hope-fueled auditory hallucination, and saw that yes, Craig Boone was indeed laughing.

Knowing that he couldn't stop now, Arcade skittered his fingers over Boone's rib cage before allowing them to trail down over Boone's heaving stomach. By now, Boone was leaning back, quite in danger of falling over, and grasping Arcade's forearm in a weak attempt to stop him. Allowing his hands to migrate to Boone's sides and nip maddeningly at the toned flesh, Arcade tickled Boone much like you would a child, surprised all the while at the reaction he was getting.

This was the last straw, and Boone fell over backwards, cawing madly all the while. Arcade followed him gamely, eventually coming to straddle the smaller man and tickle him on the pecks. For the moment, Arcade had lost all fear of the inevitable revenge to be visited upon him later, and found himself laughing along, belly heaving to the sound of Boone's surprised guffaws. After the Courier got over her initial shock, she too couldn't help but join in disbelievingly, her pearly feminine laughter tinkling in the air.

Boone's glasses lay askew, more off of his face than on, and his beloved beret had fallen to the ground. "S-stop," Boone choked out between laughs, bringing a hand to his face to wipe at the tears rolling down his cheeks. Arcade, laughing so hard that the muscles of his stomach were beginning to ache incredibly, gave Boone's ribs one more good flourish with his fingers before rolling off of Boone, and laying in the dirt. The group laughed manically for a good minute longer before their uncontrollable laughter began to dry up. The Courier hiccupped out a few more good laughs before she was left to regain her breath and wipe the moisture from her eyes. Boone lay upon the ground, utterly spent, and more than a little unsure of how to process what had just happened. Eventually, his eyes stopped watering, and pain in his stomach muscles subsided, leaving him with that dull, yet satisfying ache left in the wake of a good belly laugh. Arcade, the first to gain control of himself after their fit of laughter, laid on the ground. His belly muscles ached too, but then again, so did his stomach. While the former was pleasant, the latter was an unsavory, bubbling fear at what Boone was going to do to him.

_But, god, was it worth it to see the look on his face,_ Arcade thought, dazed. _And that laugh? Priceless,_ Arcade thought, and at that moment decided that no matter the pain that would be inflicted in retaliation, it had been worth it. He could hear Boone struggling to his feet beside him and thought _here it comes…._

Craig Boone loomed over him, looking particularly bald and stern without his beret or glasses. Boone's face was pinched and tight lipped, but that was no indication as the man always looked like he sucked lemons for fun. After a moment which seemed like an eternity to Gannon, Boone offered his hand. Incredulous, Arcade accepted it and struggled to his feet. The Courier too, was standing, perceptive enough to realize that she may need to break up what she would refer to as a cat fight.

"I guess I deserved that," Boone said after a long minute. "I've never been too good at getting along with others. Sorry."

"That's—that's quite alright," Arcade responded, not believing his ears.

"Just one thing," Boone grumbled. "That fuck Manny Vargas—did he tell you I was ticklish?"

"Yes," Arcade replied wisely, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Thought so. I'm going to kick the shit out of him next time we go to Novak."


End file.
